Bring on the Hydrogen!

2008-04-25

Israeli invention could pave way for hydrogen cars

By David Shamah

Everyone's heard that old story about the scientist who invents a "magic pill" that turns water into gasoline -- with the invention eventually getting into the hands of the oil companies that bury it, fearing they will be driven out of business when word gets out about their competition. It sounds like science fiction, but believe it or not, that's exactly what happened to Moshe Stern, head of C.En (Clean Energy), who said his company's scientists have developed a revolutionary breakthrough that will enable automobile manufacturers to produce -- and sell -- cars that use hydrogen power. It's a breakthrough that has been getting a lot of attention -- and oil companies got wind of it, too, with one company allegedly offering him $50 million to shelve his project. Stern didn't take the money, though; he intends to see his hydrogen car project through. As a result, he said, for the first time the West has an opportunity to make a real dent in its dependence on OPEC oil. Hydrogen has long been the great green hope for governments and environmentalists, as well as the ideal opportunity to lessen oil imports for Western countries -- since hydrogen can be manufactured from water. President Bush has set aside billions for development of the technology, and hydrogen is the preferred alternative fuel for public vehicles, like buses, in many cities. Among the cities with at least some public buses fueled by hydrogen are London; Reykjavik, Iceland; Perth, Australia, and Santa Monica -- where nearly three-quarters of all municipal vehicles of all types are powered by the fuel. Instead of producing carbon monoxide or other harmful pollutants, hydrogen fuel emits water vapor, which is certainly better for the environment than fossil fuel emissions -- even though some scientists believe it should be considered a greenhouse gas. Lower pollution and less money for OPEC -- hydrogen sounds tailo rmade for the fuel problems that ail us. While Bill Gates of Microsoft fame may have been right when he said, "If GM kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles per gallon," the fact is that the industry says that hydrogen is still not ready for prime time. While producing the hydrogen is easy enough, getting the fuel into the car and storing it in a fuel tank are some of the biggest obstacles for the technology. This, industry experts say, has traditionally been the deal-breaker for increased hydrogen use. Most hydrogen vehicles on the road use a liquid form of the material, which requires a super strong and super heavy storage tank. Liquid hydrogen is unstable and needs to be insulated from the excess shocks of bumps and potholes that are a part of everyday driving, so the tanks themselves are large and heavy, and hold about five gallons of fuel -- enough for barely 160 miles of driving. Then there's the issue of integrating the fuel into internal combustion vehicles that, for better or worse, are unlikely to be phased out anytime soon -- as well as the question of where drivers are supposed to fill up, because hydrogen stations are rare. All these are legitimate concerns that have kept hydrogen development restricted more or less to the laboratory, Stern said, and all concerns that are addressed and solved with C.En's hydrogen storage and supply solution. The difference? C.En's tank uses hydrogen gas collected from the environment (i.e., not produced from fossil fuels) and enclosed in a thin but leak-proof glass container. The best part: Drivers will be able to buy "gas" at automotive or discount stores, fueling up approximately every 370 miles. Stern said they can build a 16-gallon tank that weighs no more than 100 pounds,unlike tanks currently used for liquid hydrogen that weigh several hundred pounds. "Our company's breakthrough is in accumulating hydrogen in a glass material that is very small, only a few microns," said Stern, who is also president of Environmental Energy Resources (EER), a waste treatment company. "You don't need to transport hydrogen to fuel stations, and you don't need pipelines. The tanks will be like a battery that can be replaced, and you can carry a reserve in the car." When you run out of hydrogen in one tank, according to Stern, you just pull out the empty cell and put in the fresh one, which will be good for another 370 miles. The cells, in fact, will act just like batteries in electric or hybrid cars and fit right in with the standard internal combustion engine -- which means that Detroit or Japan don't have to retool their factories or production lines to build cars with the capacity for hydrogen cells. The know-how and means of production are in use right now, in fact, as almost every car manufacturer is already producing hybrids or straight electric cars. George Sverdrup, technology manager for the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory's hydrogen, fuel cells and infrastructure technologies program, said that once the storage problem is solved, there is no reason hydrogen cannot be used as the premiere fuel to power cars. "We can use hydrogen to decrease our dependence on imported petroleum, because it can be produced by a variety of domestic resources, including water and biomass," he said, adding that his group has made a great deal of progress in recent years figuring out ways to store hydrogen more safely -- a problem solved by C.En's invention. Stern is coordinator of the project and chief investor. Among the others are Israeli, as well as Korean, Japanese and Russian investors. The head researcher is professor Dan Eliezer of Ben-Gurion University, an expert in hydrogen who has done work for NASA and security organizations in Israel and the United States. The team has conducted more than 100 tests over the past several years and is going to be conducting field tests in Germany, where the company will seek approval by BAM (the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing). "With our solution, we have solved the three major problems that have faced hydrogen fuel technology -- size of tank, its safety and lightweight storage," Stern said. "In addition, we believe that the use of this system will actually reduce the price of cars overall, chopping about $1,600 off the sticker price, since the standard gas tank will no longer be necessary." In addition, hydrogen fuel produced in this manner has another advantage, Stern said, "Since we are in essence producing a battery," he explained, "the technology can be adapted to work with other devices and products that utilize battery power, as well, such as laptop computers and cellphones." A laptop battery product to scale would be cheap and easy to make, he said, and allow far greater periods of untethered, electricity-free work than the current Li-On batteries used by many laptops. After six months of testing in Germany, where the company expects approval by the BAM institute, Stern and his team will present the technology to U.S. authorities and international carmakers. "BAM's approval will be accepted worldwide, and at that point, we will be able to close deals with a strategic partner," Stern said. Meanwhile, C.En has raised $10 million so far and expects to greatly increase its stake once the testing is done. "We are looking now for one of the giants to adopt our technology and support it," Stern said. It's hard to imagine he won't find several companies to embrace his breakthrough, which could really, finally, solve the oil problem, once and for all. Article courtesy of The Jerusalem Post.

Army general 'mad' about condition of housing at Fort Bragg - On Deadline - USATODAY.com

There's a thing called the chain of command, there's a thing called inspections, and there's a thing called notice. The Army, as screwed up as it may be, had all 3 of those.

Inspections are done all the time, if you live on base then it's just part of living on base. You're usually told when an inspection is coming, but sometimes you may get a surprise inspection. Superiors conduct the inspections and not deficiencies. The Army also has engineers and building inspectors or whatever that are supposed to report up the chain of command any deficiencies. There are also the people who live in the structures who will complain to their superiors when something is wrong.

So, I find it impossible to believe that the Army didn't have notice that its barracks were having problems. The person in charge of the base's barracks had to have known, or should have known, that there was a problem with that building's plumbing, and being the slime-ball, lazy, slum lord that he is, did nothing. No, I don't know the person, but their work ethic and standard of care is plainly evident.

The person in charge of barracks over there at Bragg should be stripped of rank and kicked out because the guy is an idiot even by Army standards. I was in the Navy, so all Army pukes are in a way inferior of course... but rivalry aside, as a human being, I think the person(s) who allowed this to happen... this health hazard where people have to live and sleep... where people go after doing their daily grind on the job, where they should be able to relax and go take a piss without having to tread through sewage... yeah, the person(s) who allowed this to happen need to be in front of a judge or panel of judges and receive the max penalties allowed, including some jail time if at all possible, because to allow this was indeed criminal.

Who the hell would want to join the Army or ANY service if this is what they thought was the norm. No wonder people don't want to join anymore, not only do you have deploy to Iraq or Afstan, but when you come back you have to live in filth too. Bump that!

That said... people pull some nasty pranks sometimes. Clogging a toilet with toilet paper, for example. Some are more elaborate than others. So, if thing was just one of those nasty pranks, then the pranksters need to be caught and sent up the chain because that is just going too far.

Been a while

It's been a while since I blogged here, I did the myspace thing for a little while but the whole thing with myspace seems a little "kiddy" to me. Facebook is better, but still. I looked at some of the blogs I've done here, wow. It's been a long time since Sheri, and it's really sad I still think about her every freekin day. I want so bad to find someone else... I've been dating a lot, too much probably, but none of them had it, whatever "it" is. Sheri had it though, I think I simply may have met her too soon. If I had gone through all these women first, then I would have done a lot more to at least try and keep her. But it's too late, way too late. So I just hope one day I'll meet a woman I I'm attracted to and can fall in love with.

So, I pretty much worked out all last year, 2007. I'm in a lot better shape, I weigh about 185 lbs, and do strength and cardio. I was going to get to 200 lbs, but at 190 I felt like I was having to force feed myself. So, a muscular 185 seems to suit me well enough.

Right now, it looks like I may get an interview with a place in Houston that would actually pay a decent salary. Crossing my fingers. And the other day I worked my ass off at my granny's, pulled up 3 stumps, fixed up a step path, pruned stuff, weeded/hoed... a lot of yard work since my granny is about to put her place up for sale once some work is done to fix up the house. Well, this guy comes by, loves the yard and offers $60,000 as is. My granny told me I made her yard beautiful. She also said they walked along the steps I had fixed up and liked them. So basically the guy is buying the place based almost entirely on the yard. We figured it's a good price considering how much it was going to take to get the house up to snuff... it needed a lot of work. So now as soon as she closes on the house, my dad will buy her a new place.

Oh, I also read a ton last year. I started off reading some novels... SK's The Cell, and a good one called The Last Templar. Then, I decided I wanted to try something different, a different genre. So, I did a lot of research and decided I would try out the, "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. Or at the very least the first book of it. So, I bought "A Game of Thrones" which is the first book of the Song. Oh... My... God... that book SO kicked ass. The book is thick, but the story is so good you wish it was even longer. And I guess it is, but you have to buy the next book, and I did. And it was either just as good or maybe even a little better! There's 4 books out in the series right now, the 5th one should be finished shortly, according to GRRM, the author... George R. R. Martin. Oh, the genre is Fantasy, but it's not at all what I thought it would probably be like. I had read a Fantasy book before, called the Magician, I think it was 2 books in one, had a character called Puc I think. Anyway, it had magic and all that junk in there. But in Song, it's hard for me to truly characterize it as Fantasy, or at least pure Fantasy. It's more... hard core, grit... people die in this, people you wouldn't think would be killed, it really catches your attention and makes you think, "What the?!?!" And then there are the adult scenes which is nice since you know this was made for adults. Anyway, I can honestly say I haven't read anything that I've truly enjoyed reading as much as this series. I just wish the author wouldn't pussyfoot around so much and would just concentrate on finishing this series. Yeah, I'm selfish like that. :)

So, I read all 4 books and wanted more. So I did a little more research and decided to go ahead and try my hand at the "Wheel of Time" series, by Robert Jordan (pen name). My research basically told me that the first few books were good, but that the author seemed to be dragging out the series, and spent too much time describing things that didn't matter. Also, the author had a blood disease and was working to finish the series in the next book, even if the book turned out to be 2,000 pages. I figured, maybe by the time I read all 11 books, then the last book will be out or will out soon enough. Oh, I also read that one could skip books 7-10 and wouldn't miss anything (that's so wrong). So, what the heck, I'll give it a shot, and if it gets too boring I'll just find something else.

While reading the first book, there appeared to be somewhat odd similarities to what's found in Song. Not a direct stealing of ideas from Jordan, but you can tell some things aren't a far stretch. Anyway, if you read that first book then you HAVE to read the second, and then the third, and so on, in my opinion. Yes, I found another series I really liked. I got to the books that some people had said could be skipped, and they were entertaining, and flowed with the story, and if you skip them you're stupid. I got to the "Crossroads of Twilight" which has lots of reviews on Amazon, some of the funniest reviews ever are regarding this book, all putting it down in imaginative ways and rating it low. But, it's actually good. I think the real problem is that when you wait 2 years for a book to come out, you get your expectations too high. However, reading the series straight through eliminates the unreal expectation and the whole body of work flows very smoothly. But, unfortunately, I believe it was while I was reading Crossroads, that I found out Robert Jordan had succumbed to the rare blood disease. It was really weird, I opened up my excite.com homepage, was going to check my email and just happened to catch his name in the news section, and it said he had died. A whole world in conflict, good and evil colliding, Rand, Aes Sedai, the Chosen, the Aiel, Matt & Tuon, Perrin & Faile, Aviendha, Elayne, Min... so many interesting things going on, and the storyteller is gone.

Luckily Robert Jordan, knowing that there was a chance he wouldn't be able to finish writing the book, made sure a couple of people knew the conclusion he had in mind, and made notes, outlines, etc. so that someone could finish it for him. So, as I write this, some guy in Utah is writing that critical last book. There are a lot of people that have read the WoT series since it has spanned nearly two decades. Hopefully this guy won't make the same recurring grammatical errors that Jordan seemed to be fond of. I'm sorry, I can only take so many "had had" and the use of the wrong homonym. But writing fiction is really more about ideas and telling the story than getting perfect spelling and grammar. Anyway, I think the last WoT book is due out in 2009.

So, reading took up a lot of time for me in 2007, and I figured I wanted to do something different this year. I thought about what I deficiency I could improve on and enjoy in the process. Well, I definitely don't watch as many movies as most people, and people will talk about some well known movie... and there are movies that everyone seemingly has seen or should have seen by now. One example I guess is Schindler's List, never saw it. So I decided I'd work on movies this year, and got on with Netflix, 5 dvds at a time. So, since about February I think, I've been watching a lot of movies. I think I like reading more. But, I'm going to go through a bunch and then I'll either quit Netflix or reduce it to maybe 2 or 3 dvds at a time. I won't Blockbuster because they force movie makers to edit their movies to BB's standard. Don't believe me, watch A Clockwork Orange from BB, they cut out a lot. I had rented it since my cousin had never seen it, and I couldn't figure out why it seemed to stupid, then I realized that it had been chopped. Much like how Walmart won't sell CDs they deem vulgar, the maker/distributor simply edits the product to make it suitable for the retailer. Corporate morality... Thanks, but I'd rather see the movie as it was meant to be seen, I'm a grown up, I can handle it, jackass.

Ok, enough for now.